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When Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a GOP presidential hopeful, said in July that, if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the issue of abortion would then bounce back to be decided by the individual states, he evoked challenges from many in the pro-life movement.
Perry based this stance on his interpretation of the 10th Amendment, which states that all powers not specifically named as belonging to the federal government are granted to the states.
“You either have to believe in the 10th Amendment or you don’t,” Perry said at the time. “You can’t believe in the 10th Amendment for a few issues and then [for] something that doesn’t suit you say, ‘We’d rather not have states decide that.’”
Robert George, McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, rebutted Perry’s stance in a press release from the Susan B. Anthony List. George argued that under the 14th Amendment, which forbids a state from taking a life without due process, the federal government has an obligation to protect human life.
When Perry signed the Susan B. Anthony List’s presidential pro-life pledge on Aug. 23, he implicitly recognized the view of the federal government’s role as stated by George.
“Gov. Perry has been a longtime friend of, and leader for, the pro-life community,” SBA List’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement. “His signature on our pledge is more than welcome, and we applaud him for his commitment to continue to fight for women and unborn children.”
Perry has close ties to pro-life groups in Texas. “He’s been totally pro-life his entire political career,” Elizabeth Graham, executive director of Texas Right to life, told the Register. “He has the pro-life cause in his heart.”
Graham said that Perry had restructured legislative committees to make it easier to pass pro-life legislation. As lieutenant governor, in 1999, Perry worked for passage of the Parental Notification Act, considered one of the most important pieces of pro-life legislation in Texas history. It is credited with reducing the number of minors seeking abortions in Texas.
Perry has signed a number of pro-life pieces of legislation: a law prohibiting abortion in the third trimester, another ending taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, and the Prenatal Protection Act, which expanded the definition of human life to include “every stage of gestation from fertilization to birth.”
Perry’s judicial appointments have also won praise from the pro-life community, according to Graham. She mentioned as examples Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, a Republican and the first African-American chief justice in Texas. Another appointee is Eva Guzman, whom Perry hailed as “a strict constructionist with an unmatched work ethic” and a “principled conservative” when he named her to the state Supreme Court.
On another important issue, however, Perry’s record is troubling to some in the pro-life movement. Perry is a supporter of the death penalty, and he has presided over no fewer than 234 executions in his 11 years as governor of Texas.
“If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas,” the colorful governor wrote in his book Fed Up.
One of Perry’s most controversial stands was his opposition to legislation banning the execution of people with mental disabilities in Texas. But the case that is most often cited in discussing Perry’s record on capital punishment is the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted of intentionally killing his three small children through arson.
When the New Yorker magazine published a sympathetic profile of Willingham in 2009, five years after his execution, it became clear that the case would continue to raise questions about Perry. Crucial to convicting Willingham, according to the story, was the testimony of Texas investigators, who expressed no doubt that the lethal fire was arson. Willingham had made it out of the burning house, while his children died.
That judgment was challenged, however, following an investigation conducted by Gerald Hurst, a nationally recognized arson expert. Hurst said there was no way to establish that the Willingham fire was the result of arson. The Hurst report was sent to Perry with a request for a 30-day stay of execution. Perry refused to grant a stay.
For opponents of capital punishment, Willingham has become a symbol of the innocent man executed.
“It’s hard to say with 100% certainty whether Willingham was guilty or innocent,” said David Atwood, founder of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
“But he was convicted because a Texas investigator said that the fire was arson and not accidental. These investigators were contradicted by the nationally recognized investigator, who said it could not be established that there was arson. It would have been better to err on the side of life, but the governor went ahead with the execution,” said Atwood.
Critics contend that Perry had nothing to lose in granting a brief stay. However, Bernie Dobranski, dean emeritus at the Ave Maria School of Law — who stressed that he had no special familiarity with the Willingham case — said that governors usually don’t grant such stays unless they find new evidence that is convincing. “Perry obviously didn’t think this request rose to that level,” said Dobranski.
Dudley Sharp, a longtime advocate for the death penalty, believes that “the death penalty protects innocent people” and insists that Hurst lacked forensic evidence available to the original investigators. He also argued that Hurst was unable to show definitively that the fire was not arson.
“Perry could easily have thought that were was nothing that warranted a stay,” Sharp said. “It was just another expert. That’s the trouble with dueling experts. You’ve got Fred Expert and Wilma Expert opposing each other.”
That explanation was challenged by a Texas journalist who has covered the issue.
“The evidence presented at Willingham’s trial was not scientifically valid,” said Dave Mann, a reporter at the Texas Observer. He added, “if the trial were being held today, Willingham would not be convicted.”
Although the issue of capital punishment may affect the way voters view Perry, it would not surface if he were elected president. Same-sex “marriage” is a different matter, as the president and his Department of Justice can strongly influence policy on this deeply contentious matter.
Perry’s fondness for the 10th Amendment may get him in trouble with voters who want an unconditional endorsement of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
Speaking at the Aspen Institute in July, Perry was asked about the recent legalization of homosexual “marriage” in New York. After making it clear that he is “pro-traditional marriage,” Perry said that New York stance on same-sex “marriage” was “fine with me” because “that’s their call.”
Later, he appeared to backtrack on this remark: He signed the National Organization for Marriage’s pledge, which calls for the federal government to support traditional marriage. The NOM pledge calls for a constitutional amendment stating that marriage is between a man and a woman, for vigorous support for the Defense of Marriage Act, the appointment of marriage-friendly judges, and the creation of a commission to investigate charges of harassment of traditional marriage advocates.
“Kudos to Gov. Rick Perry for making it clear: He’s a marriage champion!,” said Brian Brown, president of NOM. “The purpose of NOM’s Marriage Pledge is to move from vague values statements to concrete actions to protect marriage. Gov. Perry joins Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum as a signer of NOM"s Marriage Pledge. By doing so, Perry makes crystal clear that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, gay marriage is going to be a bigger issue in 2012 than it was in 2008, because the difference between the GOP nominee and Pres. Obama is going to be large and clear. We look forward to demonstrating that being for marriage is a winning position for a presidential candidate.”
Perry may have a problem with values voters on another issue, however. In 2007, Perry bypassed the state legislature and issued an executive order requiring that sixth-grade girls receive the Gardasil vaccine. Gardasil protects against the human papillomavirus, the cause of cervical cancer. HPV is sexually transmitted.
In Texas, many parents of teen-aged girls were up in arms at the mandate for vaccination against a disease that is spread by sexual intercourse.
Perry came under such heavy fire that he wrote a piece defending himself in USA Today.
“I will always take the side of protecting life,” he wrote. Critics of his vaccination policy considered this a weak response. More recently, columnist Michelle Malkin penned a widely circulated column attacking the executive order as an example of “bad, Obama-style medicine.”
Perry has tried to distance himself from the controversial executive order, admitting it was wrong to bypass the state Legislature. However, he didn’t completely repudiate his position.
Despite the governor’s high standing within the Texas right-to-life movement, he should expect Gardasil questions to dog him on the campaign trail.
In our series on the men and women who have announced their candidacy for the office of president of the United States, Register correspondent Charlotte Hays has profiled /Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney. She writes from Washington, D.C.
The Governor’s Economics
As Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign has gathered momentum, Texas’ economy has become a hot topic nationally.
Texas has created an astonishing 37% of all net new jobs in the country since the recovery officially began in June 2009, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Indeed, in the past five years, the state of Texas has created more new jobs than all the other states combined.
This is one of Perry’s prime talking points as he seeks the White House. But can he claim credit for the job creation? What principles have driven Texas’s job creation boom?
One of Perry’s clearly articulated ideals, expressed on the campaign trail and in his book Fed Up, is his vision of limited government. Perry believes in letting the private sector lead.
“If you watched his announcement speech in Charleston, S.C.,” said Joshua Trevino of the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation, “he had a line in which he said that [he would] work to try to make Washington as inconsequential in your life as he can. That is his philosophy in a nutshell. That is how he has governed.”
The question voters will have to decide is whether this philosophy helped create the Texas record of job creation, and, if so, is it applicable nationwide?
In an often-quoted column, New York Times’ Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman has already thrown down the gauntlet. “So what you need to know is that the Texas miracle is a myth,” Krugman wrote, “and more broadly, that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment.”
“I don’t think there’s a Texas miracle,” said Dave Mann, a reporter at the venerable Texas Observer, a bastion of Texas liberalism, “but it’s unquestionable that Texas has performed well and definitely better than other states.”
Mann attributes Texas’ success to the entrepreneurial character of the state more than to Perry’s leadership. A state with low taxes and a weak regulatory policy, Texas is one of nine states in the Union that have no state income tax.
One claim frequently lodged by those who insist that Perry is not entitled to bragging rights is that Texas owes its economy to its present booming energy business, not the governor’s policies.
Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow and energy expert at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market think tank headquartered in Dallas, noted that the United States has energy resources to rival Texas. But instead of giving the energy businesses freer rein, as Texas does, the U.S. increasingly regulates their operations, he said.
Burnett attributes much of Texas’ success to the state’s lack of regulation. “Perry has fought regulations,” Burnett said, “including regulations the state has tried to impose on us. President Obama put a moratorium in place. Texas didn’t. If you are interested in economic results instead of paperwork, the Texas plan under Rick Perry works.”
The Texas Legislature, with the staunch support of Perry, adopted a “loser pay” policy in medical malpractice suits. There are several points in a lawsuit during which the plaintiff can pull out without risk of paying the court costs. Texas also has a cap on the award possible for pain and suffering, though there is no limit on what may be awarded to take care of a person who has been injured by a doctor or hospital.
As a result of this tort reform, say supporters, physicians are flocking to Texas, where they can practice medicine with less fear of frivolous lawsuits and lawyer-churned-up class-action suits. Medical malpractice insurance is correspondingly lower.
“One of the biggest facts is that before tort reform we did not have enough physicians in Texas, and now there is an inflow of doctors,” said Trevino.
Ryan Brannan, a policy expert at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, estimates that Texas has attracted 27,000 new doctors since tort reform began in 2003.
Meanwhile, Dallas Fed chairman Richard Fisher recently attributed tort reform on issues like product liability and class-action suits as the reason why large companies like John Deere have set up shop in Texas, generating new jobs.
“The doctors and companies point to tort reform as a success,” said the Texas Observer’s Mann. “The other side is the trial lawyers and others who would say that it has closed courtroom doors to some people.”
For example, in the wake of a $250,000 cap on the deaths of relatives in nursing homes, fewer lawyers are willing to take these cases. Yet some tort-reform supporters counter that by preventing the courts from being clogged with possibly frivolous suits so people with legitimate claims have a better chance of getting their cases heard quickly.
Although few can quibble about the explosion of jobs in Texas, a right-to-work state, questions have been raised about the quality of the jobs.
“We have lots of jobs,” said Dick Lavine, senior fiscal analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, “but they are not very good jobs. Texas ties Mississippi for the highest portion of a workforce at or below the minimum wage. This mirrors state government which has low taxes and a low level of services.”
And although Texas has created more new jobs than any other state, its unemployment rate is 8.2%. That’s better than the national rate of 9.1%, but still not the lowest in the nation. An influx of new people needing jobs, including unskilled workers, has arguably contributed to the state’s unemployment rate.
“Perry is going to get hit on the ‘preferential option for the poor,’” said Bernie Dobranski, dean emeritus of the Ave Maria School of Law. “The point that needs to be made is that free markets are the best way to create prosperity and further the common good. A thriving economy is how you help the poor.”
Walter Williams, the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, who has written extensively on the impact of raising the minimum wage, underscores this point in even blunter terms.
“Making $7.25 an hour is better than making $0 an hour,” Williams said. “The history of jobs is that the person who starts out with a minimum-wage job will eventually get a better job.” A high minimum wage, Williams said, always makes for high unemployment among the less skilled.
Perry may be the conservative’s conservative, but on one issue he is likely to face criticism from some of the GOP base — immigration. He is a backer of the Texas version of the Dream Act, which allows in-state tuition help for children of illegal immigrants.
Although Perry has made a point of installing cameras at the Texas-Mexico border, and has called for better border control, he criticized Arizona’s more stringent immigration law, arguing that such a law “would not be the right direction for Texas.”
— Charlotte Hays
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Mark Shea: A reader wonders about "forfeiting the right to life"
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Filed under presidential hope nots next to the surely there must be someone better than this file.
I’m glad to know this information. Why would he basically force girls to get a vaccine (especially one with such heinous side effects as Gardasil) when, in so many other respects, he’s a staunch defender of the 10th amendment and individual freedoms? Baffled, I am.
I voted for Perry twice and regret it. The only reason I voted for him the second time was because he was the only pro-life candidate on the ballot. If he wins the GOP nomination, I won’t even bother voting for president.
I’m not impressed with this profile. The subhead is misleading, especially when the profile goes on to say that Perry signed the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) pledge. (The editor responds: This story was originally posted prior to his signing NOM’s pledge.) Second, unless the Catechism has been changed, it is my understanding that is the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church—which teaching should shape every voting decision we make—that the Death Penalty is not INTRINSICALLY wrong. While various bishops as well as Blessed John Paul II, our dear former Pope, have said that in practice, it is almost never necessary to execute a criminal in order to protect the public because of the great technology improving security, I think it is just really wrong of Catholic organs to write nowadays as if they assume that the Church assumes all death penalty usage is wrong. That’s just not the case and I challenge the Register to do a better job helping the faithful to understand this situation. Third, it is OFFENSIVE to me (and everyone else, I would wish) to in any way suggest an equivalency between the death penalty and legalized abortion. The death penalty affects people convicted of crimes, also known as criminals, or non-innocent people, who usually have greatly harmed society and pose a continuing threat. It also affects a very small number of people. And, it is NOT INTRINSICALLY evil. Whereas it is always and everywhere intrinsically wrong to use abortion (as opposed to some kind of treatment not intended to abort, but rather to save the mother), and horrendously large numbers of completely innocent unborn babies are killed by abortion every—-single—-day in this country and around the world. I further challenge the Register to write numerous (one would wish) pieces from every conceivable (sorry—bad pun) angle contrasting and clarifying this issue and making it CRYSTAL clear that faithful Catholics MUST rank stopping legal abortion above a candidate’s stand on capital punishment!!! Please, Catholic Register, I beg you: I have heard otherwise outstanding priests tell the faithful that they were sinning if their candidate had the slightest taint in his pro-life stand: Judy Brown of the American Life League makes this her mission in life, to try to convince as many Catholics as possible to vote for a candidate ONLY if their position on abortion is EXACTLY the same as the Church’s—or at least, as Ms. Brown understands it. What she always forgets is that the Church teaches that we must vote, and we must vote in a way that will bring the greatest likelihood of decreasing abortion possible. In other words, it would be right to vote for someone like George Bush, who opposed the vast majority of abortions and agreed to sign pro-life legislation such as the National Right to Life Committee proposes, while it would be wrong to support someone like Bill Clinton, who promised to, and did, veto all pro-life legislation. I won’t even get into Mr. Obama: it’s beyond belief that he voted TWICE that babies born alive after botched abortions should not be taken care of, but left to die on the table. With that in mind, it is my opinion that the Register would be very, very blessed by me and probably a few others if it would do all it can to NOT confuse Catholics about who would be best to vote for—or against. Frankly, I stand with the National Right to Life Committee, whose Minnesota affiliate I used to work for: I will support whomever the nominee opposed to Mr. Obama is. Because no matter their imperfections, there is no candidate in the field who comes close to being as pro-abortion, pro-death, pro-big-govenment as Mr. Obama. Oh, one last thing: There is absolutely NOTHING unconstitutional about arrogating pro-life legislation back to the states. Nor is it immoral. Had Harry Blackmun simply believed in that one prinicipal, neither Roe nor Doe would ever have been written, and millions upon millions of human beings and their children and maybe even grandchildren would be alive today.
I forgot, in the heat of my last long screed (which I hope will be as graciously received as I meant it to sound…sorry if I get a little passionate), to add that Mr. Perry HAS repudiated his Gardasil stance, so let’s not beat him up, when if we divide the Catholic electorate, we WILL reelect Barack Obama, who opposes virtually every moral position our Church takes on matters that will come under his thumb for budget or legislation. Remember what happened when Ross Perot ran? We elected Bill Clinton, who twice vetoed the bill that would have banned Partial-Birth abortion. (When abortionists are aborting a baby older than 20 weeks, the bones are harder, so instead of sawing the baby up into pieces in utero, they pull the baby out by the feet and puncture the head, suction out the brain, and the baby is dead when pulled all the way out—so it’s considered an abortion not infanticide—except by any rational person.)
Governor Perry’s support for Capital Punishment is entirely in line with the authentic and constant teaching of the Catholic faith, no matter how many lay or clergy, say otherwise. That teaching is in summary below if anyone cares.
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Catholics who support Capital Punishment need not fear that they are not in accord with the traditional teaching of the Catholic Faith. To support capital punishment is to be nothing less than authentically Catholic.
Capital punishment has a strong claim to being morally obligatory for those who wish to protect life. The Fathers and Doctors of the Catholic Church are virtually unanimous in their support. In modern times Doctors of the Church such as Robert Bellarmine and Alphonsus Liguori held that certain criminals should be punished by death. Blessed John Henry Newman maintained that the magistrate had the right to bear the sword, and that the Church should sanction its use. St. Thomas More agreed. The magisterium of the Catholic Church does not now, and never has, advocated abolition of the death penalty. It has always recognized the necessity of capital punishment. No passage in the Old or New Testament disapproves of the death penalty and many passages promote its use. (see end of article if you get that far)
Pope Innocent I in the year 405
“It must be remembered that power was granted by God, and to avenge crime the sword was permitted; he who carries out this vengeance is God’s minister. What motive have we for condemning a practice that all hold to be permitted by God? We uphold, therefore, what has been observed until now, in order not to alter the discipline and so that we may not appear to act contrary to God’s authority.”
St. Augustine in The City of God
“The same divine law which forbids the killing of human beings allows certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time. Since the agent of authority is but a sword in the hand, and is not responsible for the killing, it is in no way contrary to the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” to wage war at God’s bidding, or for the representatives of the State’s authority to put criminals to death, according to law or the rule of rational justice.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 11; 65-2; 66-6.
“If a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the common good is to be commended. Only the public authority, not private persons, may licitly execute malefactors by public judgment. Men shall be sentenced to death for crimes of irreparable harm or which are particularly perverted.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas - executions represent mercy to the wrongdoer:
“...a secondary measure of the love of God may be said to appear, for capital punishment provides the murderer with incentive to repentance which the ordinary man does not have, that is a definite date on which he is to meet his God. It is as if God thus providentially granted him a special inducement to repentance out of consideration of the enormity of his crime…the law grants to the condemned an opportunity which he did not grant to his victim, the opportunity to prepare to meet his God. Even divine justice here may be said to be tempered with mercy.”
Saint Pope Pius V, in 1566 - The Catechism of Trent - On the Execution of Criminals:
“The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia in 1912 noted:
“The infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the power of the State to visit upon culprits the penalty of death derives much authority from revelation and from the writings of theologians.”
Pope Pius XII in 1952
“Even when there is question of the execution of a condemned man, the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. In this case it is reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned person of the enjoyment of life in expiation of his crime when, by his crime, he has already disposed himself of his right to life.”
Avery Cardinal Dulles, “Catholic Teaching on the Death Penalty”, in Owens, Carlson & Elshtain, op. cit., p. 26. 2004
“The reversal of a doctrine as well established as the legitimacy of capital punishment would raise serious problems regarding the credibility of the magisterium. Consistency with scripture and long-standing Catholic tradition is important for the grounding of many current teachings of the Catholic Church; for example, those regarding abortion, contraception, the permanence of marriage, and the ineligibility of women for priestly ordination. If the tradition on capital punishment had been reversed, serious questions would be raised regarding other doctrines.”
Father George Rutler, pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York. He has a weekly program on EWTN.
As the Church’s teaching on contraception cannot “develop” in a way that would declare its intrinsic evil to be good, so the right of a state to execute criminals cannot “develop” so that its intrinsic good becomes evil.
There are some who seem to believe that our Catholic faith began with the JPII Generation.
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Study from AEI-Brookings.—- “capital punishment has a strong claim to being not merely morally permissible, but morally obligatory.”
This 44 page highly acclaimed study is by two Harvard law professors, Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, who were formerly opposed to capital punishment. Below are excerpts from their Summary and Conclusion.
Executive Summary:
Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many as eighteen or more murders for each execution. This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death. Capital punishment thus presents a life-life tradeoff, and a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, that form of punishment.
Conclusion”
Any objection to capital punishment, we believe, must rely on something other than abstract injunctions against the taking of life. If the recent evidence of deterrence is ultimately shown to be correct, then opponents of capital punishment will face an uphill struggle on moral grounds. If each execution saves many innocent lives, the harms of capital punishment would have to be very great to justify its abolition, far greater than most critics have heretofore alleged. There is always residual uncertainty in social science and legal policy, and in this domain the empirical controversy continues; we have attempted to describe, rather than to defend, the recent findings. But if those findings are right, capital punishment has a strong claim to being not merely morally permissible, but morally obligatory—above all from the standpoint of those who wish to protect life.
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Death penalty opponents, be they lay or clergy, will disparage any study which shows that capital punishment saves innocent lives. They will ignore Scripture and the traditional teaching of the Catholic faith and substitute their own personal opinion. But do we really need studies to point out the obvious. Take two identical worlds, one only with capital punishment. In which world would there be fewer murders?
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Still more if you are still here.
Justice Antonin Scalia, First Things Magazine, May 2002.
There have been Christian opponents of the death penalty, just as there have been Christian pacifists, but neither of those positions has ever been that of the Church. The current predominance of opposition to the death penalty is the legacy of Napoleon, Hegel, and Freud rather than St. Paul and St. Augustine. …
... those ideologically driven to ferret out and proclaim a mistaken modern execution have not a single verifiable case to point to, whereas it is easy as pie to identify plainly guilty murderers who have been set free.
All of the recent and current Supreme Court Justices who are pro life, support capital punishment. Supreme Court Justices who opposed capital punishment were/are pro abortion. All major media outlets that oppose capital punishment are pro abortion.
Opponents claim that the death penalty has led to the loss of respect for life. Wouldn’t it be more truthful to say that attempts to outlaw the death penalty has led to a loss of respect for life? In 1972, the Supreme Court effectively voided 40 death penalty statutes, thereby commuting the sentences of 629 death row inmates around the country. The next year, the same Supreme Court voided all anti abortion statues in all states thereby issuing a death sentence to millions of the unborn. Abortions greatly increased and so did murders. The Supreme Court rescinded the moratorium on executions in 1976.
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In thinking about what it means to be pro–life, Christians must, to begin with, distinguish between protecting innocent life and protecting society against those who destroy life. People incapable of making so elementary a distinction have no place in determining where the argument should go from here.
The opposition to the death penalty has gone hand in hand with the advance of pacifism, secular humanism and the decline of faith and morals. It originated in the 60s and 70s with the anti war movement and the sexual revolution. The sense of sin, guilt, and retributive justice has evaporated. In past times the most consistent supporters of capital punishment were the Christian churches while its most consistent opponents were groups hostile to the churches. Grave harm has always come to the Church when leaders, be they popes or bishops, promote contemporary opinions in place of traditional teaching.
To support their cause, opponents to capital punishment present inaccurate and distorted data while ignoring facts that are contrary to their opinions. The document from the USCCB, “What Every Catholic Should Know About the Death Penalty”, distorts both the teaching of Scripture and the historical teachings of the Catholic Church. The “Facts About the Death Penalty” are a misrepresentation of reality. This has opened a loophole for duplicitous Catholics, especially politicians, and have allowed them to be inconsistent and unprincipled about life issues.
The breakdown of Catholic life in America is due, in part, to bishops more concerned with preaching on political issues rather than Gospel truth. Including capital punishment alongside the evils of contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia, leads many of the faithful to conclude that these issues also can be made situationally acceptable.
The bishops’ opposition to the death penalty began in the 1970s about the same time as the contraceptive “pill”. Pope Paul VI warned in Humanae Vitae what would happen if the contraceptive mentality was not checked. When the unspeakable crime of abortion became legal it was apparent that contraception was its predecessor.
In proclaiming “a consistent ethic of life”, did the bishops connect these two moral evils? To their dishonor, they did not. They saw the opportunity instead to link capital punishment to the culture of death. Great harm has been done to the Pro Life cause by linking abortion with the morally legitimate support of capital punishment.
In their “consistent ethic of life”, death penalty opponents claim that the Church teaches that “All life must be protected from the cradle to the grave.” They leave out one word that the Church has always used in statements about the protection of life, “innocent”. See below.
Article 5 - The Fifth Commandment - The Catechism of the Catholic Church
2258 - … no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being
2261 - Scripture specifies the prohibition contained in the fifth commandment: “Do not slay the righteous.” The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator.
2263 - The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing.
2270 - … From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person—among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life .
2272 - The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.
2273 - The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation.
2297 - Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.
And then there is this in the catechism:
2260 - The covenant between God and mankind is interwoven with reminders of God’s gift of human life and man’s murderous violence.
For your lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning. . . .
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image. Gen 9:5-6.
The Old Testament always considered blood a sacred sign of life. This teaching remains necessary for all time. Cf. Lev 17:14.
Why would the Church include the word, “innocent” if it believed that murderers have “A right to life that must be protected from cradle to grave?”
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For those who got this far, here are biblical passages in support for capital punishment
Jesus and Scripture were very severe in advocating punishment for crimes far less terrible than murder. And the verdict was much more harsh, not just the loss of earthly life, but eternal life.
Genesis 6:12
When God saw how corrupt the earth had become, since all mortals led depraved lives on earth, he said to Noah: “I have decided to put an end to all mortals on earth; the earth is full of lawlessness because of them. So I will destroy them and all life on earth.
Genesis 9:6
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.
Genesis 19
... Then the angels said to Lot: “We are about to destroy this place, for the outcry reaching the LORD against those in the city is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”
….the LORD rained down sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah… .He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil.
Exodus 12:13-29
... the blood will mark the houses where you are. Seeing the blood, I will pass over you; thus, when I strike the land of Egypt, no destructive blow will come upon you.
At midnight the LORD slew every first-born in the land of Egypt, from the first-born of Pharaoh on the throne to the first-born of the prisoner in the dungeon ...
(In commemoration of the above, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal before his death)
Exodus 14:26
Then the LORD told Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may flow back upon the Egyptians …” . As the water flowed back, it covered the chariots and the charioteers of Pharaoh’s whole army which had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not a single one of them escaped.
Mt 18:6
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Mt 26:24
... woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.
Mt 25:41
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Romans 1:26
Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. … Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.
Romans 13:4 - Saint Paul
The magistrate] does not bear the sword in vain; for he is the servant of God to execute His wrath on the wrongdoer.
Acts 25:11 - Saint Paul
If I have committed a crime or done anything deserving death, I do not seek to escape the death penalty; but if there is no substance to the charges they are bringing against me, then no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.” (Paul both affirms capital statutes and accepts them as binding on him if he has broken one.)
Matthew 5:17
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.
Matthew 15:4
For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.
Matthew 25:52
Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. (Far from advocating pacifism, as is this passage often misused, Jesus here tells Peter that using the sword will get Peter executed for his actions and Jesus needed Peter to carry on His work.)
John 19:10
So Pilate said to him, “Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?” Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above. (If no crime deserves the death penalty, then it is hard to see why it was fitting that Christ be put to death for our sins. If we didn’t deserve the death penalty ourselves, then why would Christ need to suffer it on our behalf in order to satisfy the justice of His Father?)
FINIS
The writer spent seven paragraphs describing Perry’s pro-life policy while spending fourteen on his support of the death penalty. This is horrible slanted; especially considering that the death penalty is not an intrinsic evil.
The CCC states: “Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor”
It is up to legislators to determine what is and isn’t required to “effectively defend” human lives against an unjust aggressor, and the CCC elaborates on what a legislative debate should consider in reaching its decision.
Giving double the weight to death penalty concerns vs. pro-life concerns muddies the waters and allows people to support pro-abortion candidates based on a false moral equivalence. The NCR should make clear the nature of abortion and the nature of the death penalty and stop contributing to the confusion. Let’s stop abortion now. We can debate merits of the death penalty after we cease murdering our babies.
Mary Cracraft, Iam in total agreement with you! There are certain powers (people) that be who are clearly working hard to divide Catholics so Obama can be re-elected. Sadly there are supposed conservative Catholics who claim to be prolife anti-abortion but who believe in a seamless garment heresy. I didn’t want to believe we are living in the great appostacy in The Church, but the more I read and see I am beliveing it!
I’m a Catholic and I’m all for the death penalty. Go, Rick Perry!
I think the Church leadership makes a big mistake when they get involved in politics if an intrinsic moral evil is involved. Best to stick to opposition to abortion or embryonic stem cell research, opposition to same sex marriage and the like. When they have a view on everything, and take sides on issues which good Catholics can disagree in good conscience, no one listens to them.
I belive the Church should be in defense of “innocence” lives lost thru abortion, embryonic stem cell research, etc. I am for capital punishment only in cold blooded calculated murder not in the “heat” of the moment. Our Lord had the perfect opportunity to denounce “capital punishment” on the Cross…when the “good” thief said that “we deserve our punishment but this man is innocent”. At this, He remained silent but forgave the thief and the promise of paradise. Only God can judge and read a man’s heart…what their life was before they went bad on society, etc. We can’t so we as a society must protect it. If they have found “God” in prison and truly ask for forgiveness then they also will be promised “paradise”.
Jesus on the cross forgave one of the guilty men next to him, and even cleansed the man’s soul, but he didn’t prevent the condemned man’s execution. Jesus could’ve done anything he wanted, but he applied his mercy to the next world—not this one.
Thanks for the article, Charlotte Hays.
I think it is worth giving Rick Perry the benefit of the doubt as the Republican nominee. I am from Texas, and I can say that he’s not perfect, but he’s been a generally conservative leader for us, and our state has flourished in many ways under this leadership.
Yes, I have problems with his death penalty promotion. I also realize that he’s been favoring the 10th Amendment far too strong. What he needs is a bit of Catholic thought and teaching to clarify his positions.
The man is on the right road.
As a Texan, I’ve voted for him every time. He has made the great gesture of always keynoting the Pro-Life March in Austin, TX, every year I’ve been there, and he’s a role model for my children in this respect. He used the last address in January at the rally to disclose that he was making a mandatory sonogram bill an “Emergency Measure” to get it passed quickly through the Texas legislature. This was an extremely difficult measure to pass, but he spearheaded it, along with our pro-life legislators, and pushed it through our House and Senate. He defended it, like he has done all other pro-life measures, whole heartedly.
He does not just pander to the pro-lifers like McCain did. Perry is serious about protecting life. I do agree that he needs some refinement. Give him time.
Go Governor Good Hair!
To tcreek, jack, and Randy: Thank you; excellently well said, important truths to hold up before us. The Church must always hold up the truth; so many Catholics need catechizing ( I certainly do); I pray that those who write and report for the Register will choose to focus more on these facts than on a reporting style perhaps influenced more by a secular approach to the discipline. The power of the press is still great. Serving the good and the true via news organs us a tremendous vocation.
Ps Michelle—I agree that the seamless garment idea has been misused to support immoral ends and has confused many people. But I worry that you are buying into a conspiracy theory about the Catholic press, which I do not agree exists—simply living in our culture right now means immersion in a stew of ideas opposed to Church teaching, and it can be tough to sort that out. Also I would talk to a good priest about that great apostasy idea. It sounds premature (at least to me), a little flaky, and almost Protestant. I probably need some education on that though. :)
Mary Cracraft, Yes you are correct on the Catholic press. There are however certain issues lately that have me deeply concerned. I have had several conversations with solid Catholic priests (one diocesean priest and three religious order priests) and they all have concerns with the state of the Church and did mention the great apostasy in the Church. They gave homilies on it! They aren’t flakey and they are not protestant.
What has any so-called “pro-life” candidate done about the abortion issue? It seems when the election is over, the issue goes on the back burner - until the next election.
For all you Catholics pulling for Rick Perry, who wanted to pull Texas out of the Union, this is like pulling for Hans Kung to be Pope instead of Joseph Ratzinger.
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